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What really kills me about this is how he said it at the same time he was giving a speech ON THE ECONOMY. I just don’t get how he could ever, ever say it’s doing “fine.” I’ve read his excuse and backtracking, and it still fails to explain how he could ever come close to uttering those words.

I hope the Romney campaign plays that clip over and over in areas like Nevada, Michigan and Ohio that supposedly are “doing fine.”

He didn’t just stop with the private sector comment. Obama went on to explain in some detail that loading the economy down with more state and local government employees is what is needed to create sustainable economic growth. The man is a certifiable nut.

I think his point, one which is empirically accurate but which oversimplifies an assessment of the overall economy, is that the job losses in the past year have been predominantly in the public sector as opposed to private industry. It is those job losses that is making the unemployment rate stubborn, despite some degree of recovery in the private sector picture. So he’s neither delusional nor stupid. He is, however, like every other politician of either persuasion, prone to emphasizing the numbers he likes.

Sure, roll your eyes, but there are a lot of voters who are rolling their eyes at Romney’s message that the only thing wrong with America has been four years of Obama. That may work in hard-core Republican circles, but we all know both sides are going after softer voters and (so-called) independents.

In other words, this is going to be long, rather tedious, election cycle for all of us.

Did anyone listen to the entire presser? Or did you just watch Romney’s craven political pouncing? The entire point of the press conference was to push his Jobs bill because we are all unhappy with the job creation.

He did make a screw up on the wording, which he will pay for in well edited ads, but he was comparing rates in private and public sectors.

You guys could have austerity though. Try to get a job in Britain right now.

Not sure what, in my earlier comment, Lloyd found to disagree with. What I said is factually accurate.

The problem with the President’s remarks is the word “fine.” It can have a lot of meanings, but one of them is something that conveys optimality. But, despite Lloyd’s disagreement, the jobs data show clearly that private sector employment is growing and has been doing so pretty steadily to the economy over the course of the Obama administration. When policy makers consider fiscal choices, they have to keep an eye on the economic impact of the decline in public sector employment – it grew by over 1 million jobs in the Bush administration and has declined by more than half of that in the Obama administration as state and local governments struggle to reform their budgetary positions. It is the public sector that is pushing down employment figures, although all of us would like to see more vitality in private sector job growth.

Should the president have used a different word than “fine”? Sure. He could have said a lot of other things along the lines that we have been adding, on average, more than 150,000 private sector jobs a month over the course of this Calendar Year. Was he wrong in his larger point that the public sector is the data element pulling down the employment figures these days? No. Are the commenters who say that it would be better if there were more growth than we have had in the private sector. Of course. Would the president disagree with that? I doubt it.

“But, despite Lloyd’s disagreement, the jobs data show clearly that private sector employment is growing and has been doing so pretty steadily to the economy over the course of the Obama administration. ”

Only in ABSOLUTE terms. That is nothing to be proud of. You could do absolutely nothing and see such growth in this size population.

Worse than that he (and Bush) spent a tremendous amount of money compared to any previous recession and for no benefit and anemic recovery at best.

There is no spin that makes Obama’s economic record look “good” or “fine”. He has failed and we need to change course and stop spending more money to fix the problem.

What did he expect to happen. The bulk of the stimulus went to State and local government coffers to prop up the public sector. Of course it was only a one year of funding and very few jurisdictions acted with prudence knowing that after year one the excess hiring and benefits was going to be on them. Now they are faced with massive tax increases or spending reductions because the private sector was not allowed to grow (excessive regs, obamacare, etc.) Growth has not kept pace with even population growth (less than even sustainability) plus we have in excess of 10K new retirees each month. So 10k positions open up due to retirement and with some small level of growth. and we still have a serious net LOSS of jobs each month. Oh and of course, this month’s will be even more dismal when revised later on. It appears that Obama has no grasp of the facts and only keeps repeating what his campaign spin miesters tell him. Not much in the way of leadership.

Let me definition of what fine is as far as job growth goes, using historical empirical data. Fine was an average of 350,000 per month job growth (450,000 if benchmarked to current adult population), for 18 months prior to the presidential election. following the worst recession, with the highest unemployement rate since the Great Depression. That’s what Ronald Reagan accomplished by accepting the pain and unpopularity of difficult change early in his first term and then setting the economy right with pro-growth and pro-business poliicies.

In contrast, Barack Obama,refused to eat his peas, relied on sugar water stimulus with no lasting impact and resulting in crushing debt burdens, implemented actively antagnonistic business policies and layered on top of that a healthcare bill that burdens economic and job growth in dozens of different ways.

Sadly, Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan. I don’t believe he is capaable of doing much other than reversing what Barack Obama has done, which will not accomplish very much.. Romney is a technocrat — not a leader or a visionary. We are screwed, it will just happen slower with Romney.

EB. Nothing that others do, good, bad or in the middle, has any effect on the fact that Obama , your guy from day one , can’t spell economy. He is and will probably for the rest of his time on this earth an economic illiterate. The abilities , IQ or level of preformance of the entire rest of the world plays no role in the fact that Barack Obama is an economic dim bulb. He hasent a clue. If in charge of ordering supplies for Dairy Queen they would be out of business in 3 days.

Stoner, you may earn credibility if you had an open mind day one from Obama’s inauguration. Which you didn’t and like other party zombies you’ve kept up the rhetoric and for that I admire the persistence.

Dream come true…President Obama facing off versus Stoner or any of his closed-minded ilk in a debate on ANY subject, particularly economics. The notion that President Obama is not a bright, well informed individual is so wrong as to be laughable. Stoner’s bullying and name calling need to disappear from the landscape.

G, at least you used to feign some interest in the facts. Now it seems you are only interested in working to confirm in your head some set of Republican branded bullshit (which, by the way, is waaay scarier bullshit than the D’s toss out).

Your Republican presidents are the big spenders over our lifetimes.

Wishing the facts away won’t cut it.

Day One? You can’t even get the facts right on our little back and forths over the years on this blog…

Nova, fair comment. My disagreement stems from the “fine” comment. Two things in particular. First, the Obama administration has used disingenuous comparisons to argue that the private sector growth has been just peachy = particularly by comparing it to the second Bush administration when the economy tanked. Such as here.https://plus.google.com/110031535020051778989/posts/NXESZNDyqp6

But, in truth, the actual growth in private sector jobs has been anemic, especially when compared to population growth (as mentioned above), prior administrations and what we really should be generating coming out of some massive job losses.

The degree of others incomptence has zippy to do with Obamas inability to understand the most construts of the free market.

The Republican nominee could be Elmer Fudd and out perform Obama. He is a diaster.

EB, your stuck with him. I do give you credit for loyalty. However, that only gets you so far. After that you have to use your noggin.

“Your Republican presidents are the big spenders over our lifetimes”

EB’s fall back position. Bush spent too much therfore Obama is ok. Bush spent too much , Obama makes him look thrifty and we are to give Obama a pass. It was a stupid argumnet a year ago, it is even dumber now. Sorry.

I don’t see any data that give me any confidence that either party knows what it’s doing economically. I also have a fairly strong hunch that the most the US government has the political will to do, whichever party is in charge in either the Congress or the White House, is to use general economic conditions as a backdrop for electioneering.

A point, however, that has to be kept in focus re the general economy, is that the public sector, through the influence/incompetence/imbecility/whatever of both political parties, is a non-trivial component of the overall economic vitality of this country. There were times in our history (like the last depression or the recessions of the 19th Century when this was not the case, but it surely isn’t true now. One has to develop policies that promote very gentle transitional movements toward private sector employment to pick one’s way out of the economic sluggishness that has befallen us. Bloviating about slashing governmental budgets is just for show. We need adults with slide rules now, not kids yelling buzzwords.

“Stoner’s bullying and name calling need to disappear from the landscape”

How would you know, everytime I see you in public you fold up like a Walmart lawn chair and leave. Hang around, you will find me to be a rather nice guy. Heck, I think you are smarter than our current President. How is that for spreading some love ?

But when it comes to the national GOP, TC seems to get amnesia and does not hold the national GOP to the same standard as the local GOP.

They throw around stuff like Obama being the worst president ever and how he has spent more than any president ever. None of this with any context with the incredible economic crisis that Obama inherited and how failed policies could have easily thrown us into a depression (which did not happen). He spent the stimulus to end the bleeding (something that Romney and his economic advisors agree with when they let their guard down).

Andrew Sullivan and Bartlett have been shunned for pointing out this hypocrisy in the GOP, but why does TC give the national GOP a pass. Not much has changed in much of the GOP since the days of Bush, who was probably the most unconservative economic president in modern times. Yet, we get the boilerplate Obama jargon. Sure they play tough with spending with Obama, but its safe to say that would change when Romney is on the hook for job growth.

If you want lower taxes, less spending, smaller government, a sane foriegn policy that kills lots of terrorists- then elect Obama and keep a GOP congress. Even Tom Coburn believes Obama would do a grand bargain if the GOP bent on even some taxes. A grand bargain would be unpopular and Romney would not risk that in his first term.

The dirty secret that must not be said is that Reagan and Bush both boosted their job growth numbers by growing the government, something Obama has not done. Romney would need to back up his 500k jobs a month pledge and he will use government jobs to reach that goal.

You keep it real on the local GOP, why just send out the same talking points for national issues.

Liberal Anthropologist on The Failure of Obamacare Jimmy, You should engage as I am dealing with facts. Since most people have a similar opinion, if you have a different one, you should... – May 15, 12:17 AM

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